A new vision is needed because the unrelenting pressure to use more, produce more and consume more cannot be sustained. We want to counter the heavy weight of the almighty dollar. We want to build a world in which caring for and about people is a priority.

People working in the field of social media bear a particular responsibility for imagining, interrogating and forming this new world that is just beginning, for what use is our insatiable appetite for connectivity, our constant embrace of new tools, our perpetually self-reflecting conversation, if not for the job of shaping this new world with some degree of insight and deliberateness.

This is fundamental. All effective forms of protest are illegal until they succeed...t doesn’t mean they have to be violent. There are lots of different ways to be illegal. But it does mean that you have to say, “I’m trying to change a situation that is so important that I will disobey the law. My protest stands above the law.” And you also have to accept the consequences of that.

We live in a culture that has been hijacked by the management consultant ethos. We want everything boiled down to the Power Point slide. We want metrics and ‘show me numbers.’ That runs counter to the immensely complex nature of so many social, economic and political problems. You cannot devise an algorithm to fix them.

The prejudice and discrimination and the racism that I have faced over my lifetime could have made me a hater, but my beginnings growing up in a small Black community […] filled me with such love and compassion for others that hate was impossible for me to internalize.

We can’t resist this rifling around in the past, sifting the untrustworthy evidence, linking any stray names and questionable dates and anecdotes together, hanging onto threads, insisting on being joined to dead people and therefore to life.

But losing my freedom in Somalia taught me a lot about how to get it back. Every day, I make the choice to move forward and to remember that true power is derived from kindness. In the end, Ali Omar Ader’s fate has nothing to do with mine.

But that's the nature of art, it scrapes up against those ugly places and concedes their existence. Which is very different from performing, fetishizing or objectifying that ugliness, resulting in something closer, along the spectrum, to spectacle rather than art.

It's a joke to think that anyone is one thing. We're all such complex creatures. But if I'm going to be a poster child for anything, anger's a gorgeous emotion. It gets a bad rap, but it can make great changes happen.

I aspire to be an ally to those making change from the far margins, but it is not my place to declare myself an ally. People are given status as allies of fundamental change makers. It is not a title you can claim for yourself, no matter how well intentioned you are.

It is time for fresh thinking and bold actions. We must unleash the creativity and resourcefulness of Canadians in all parts of society so that we can tackle the complex and interrelated challenges of the 21st century.

When we support one another, we are stronger.
When we talk about our experience, we find meaning.
When we reflect on the meaning of our shared experience, we form a movement.
When we realize that we are a movement, we know we are not alone and that we are powerful.
When we feel powerful, we can carry on taking care.

Well, you know, you get wiped-out. And the deeper the wipe-out gets, the deeper the reluctance to use ornament or to use any of the other facilities that brought you to the wipe-out. See, if you never get wiped-out then the natural assumption is the things you’re doing are right.

It may seem hard to believe, but it's catastrophe that offers the most promise for an even richer life. This is the gateway to the good stuff. In other words, you never truly know which way the wind is blowing until the shit hits the fan.

You look at the tiniest village and the tiniest person in that village: a very capable person, a very intelligent person. You have only to create the proper environment to support these people so that they can change their own lives.

“Maybe” comes with no guarantees, only a chance. But “maybe” has always been the best odds the world has offered to those who set out to alter its course – to find a new land across the sea, to end slavery, to enable women to vote, to walk on the moon, to bring down the Berlin Wall.

Oh it’s delightful to have ambitions. I am so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them – that’s the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.

It turns out that creativity suffers if you’re too sad or too happy all the time. Ups and downs are good, and unhelpful myths about what it takes to make art distract from the fun of zeroing in on easel time’s most basic movements — what I call, “organic plodding with joy.

Anger is very natural. It comes out of fear, it comes out of dishonour, it’s a reaction to anything that threatens us and it’s addictive. To forgive and say, I’m going to let it go, give it to the higher power, whatever we call it, and then find something good in it, it’s not an easy process.

But beauty is the abundant gift that cannot be summoned. (It pours into our awareness when we are open. Vulnerable. Curious. Present. Still. And it is transformative.) Where laws break or bend us, beauty summons us to our lives. It whispers hope. It affirms our worthiness, the worthiness of being, and shows us how to hallow and how to love.

We urgently need to do everything in our power to preserve the natural habitats that still exist, not only for the sake of biodiversity but also for the well-being of our own souls. All our life force has its origins in unfettered nature. This message is, for me, inseparably connected with the wild, free-roaming wolves of Canada.

Just as one tree standing alone would soon be destroyed by the first strong wind which came along, so it is impossible for any person, any family, or any community to stand alone against the troubles of this world.

Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure. You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss. You will find you're weak where you thought yourself strong. You'll work for possessions and then find they possess you. You will find yourself — as I know you already have — in dark places, alone, and afraid. What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place. To live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign.

Finding beauty in a broken world is acknowledging that beauty leads us to our deepest and highest selves. It inspires us. We have an innate desire for grace. It's not that all our definitions of beauty are the same, but when you see a particular heron in the bend in the river, day after day, something in your soul stirs. We remember what it means to be human.

Without my intense experiences in the wilderness, which often brought me to my very limits, I wouldn't have known how far my own strengths extend and where they actually come from. In untamed nature, I learned to respect that which is uncontrollable, to accept it, and finally recognize it as an essential part of my own life.

Just like any revolution eats its children, unchecked market fundamentalism can devour the social capital essential for the long-term dynamism of capitalism itself. All ideologies are prone to extremes. Capitalism loses its sense of moderation when the belief in the power of the market enters the realm of faith.

The arts... are not a frill. They are the heart of the matter, because they are about our hearts, and our [progress in the material world] is generated by our emotions, not by our minds. A society without the arts would have broken its mirror and cut out its heart.

..for social innovators…flow occurs not so much internally as externally – in the relationship between their own activity and that of others…The division between audience and actors seem to dissolve and all are brought into a world made anew…When social innovations take flight… the innovators are influencing their context while their context is influencing them in an endless to and fro.

In the extreme depths of suffering, you really find what you need to sustain you. I have experienced the resilience of the human spirit. If the feeling of peace comes when we realize that all human beings are made of love, that is when fear is gone and you can move more easily into a peaceful state.

It doesn't matter whether a sequence of words is called a history or a story: that is, whether it is intended to follow a sequence of actual events or not. As far as its verbal shape is concerned, it will be equally mythical in either case.

When it comes to moving health care practices forward efficiently, Canada is a country of perpetual pilot projects. We seldom move proven projects into stable, funded programs, and we rarely transfer the outcomes of pilot projects across jurisdictions.

A large small group of people. I think a small group of people could certainly change it for the worst pretty quickly, and it’s changing it for the better that is often more difficult… especially since your idea of better might be someone else’s idea of worse.

Challenging status quo is easy. But going beyond that to challenge our own mind so we can work ‘with’, not necessarily against, status quo is much more difficult. It requires a lot of tolerance, integrity, and ingenuity.

We are now becoming more aware of our links to the universe and are reaching out to the universe for knowledge. We are evolving from earth creatures to star creatures. Our minds now explore the worlds beyond, and we sense a destiny beyond this planet.

Since I first started reading, I know that I think in quotations, and that I write what others have written, and that I can have no other ambition than to reshuffle and rearrange. I find great satisfaction in this task. And at the same time, I find that no satisfaction can be truly everlasting.

Indigenous resistance is also about reclamation; it’s reclaiming who we are as a People and being able to reconnect with our territories and our lands and our waters… That land base is healing but it also holds the answers and the stories of who they are and if we don’t have that, then what do we have?

When a common, authentic language is found, the voice of Indigenous people can be amplified, and we can take control of our own narrative. Only then can we start building empathy with Canadians in regards to broken treaties, missing and murdered Indigenous women, accessibility to clean water, access to mental health services and the high number of Indigenous children in government care.

Surround yourself with people that push you to do and be better. No drama or negativity. Just higher goals and higher motivation. Good times and positive energy. No jealousy or hate. Simply bringing out the absolute best in each other.

Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.”

A true direction will come from overcoming adversity. Everyone — think deeply, fight harder and obtain splendid direction for your life. I wish for you to gain guidance from your deep thinking and spread your ideas all over the world in order to establish a wonderful life and world. I think that it is very important. Let’s fight together for it. It is my strongest wish as an artist.

Anger is very natural. It comes out of fear, it comes out of dishonour, it’s a reaction to anything that threatens us and it’s addictive. To forgive and say, I’m going to let it go, give it to the higher power, whatever we call it, and then find something good in it, it’s not an easy process.

It was prophesized that the time would come when the voice of indigenous peoples would rise again after five hundred years of silence and oppression, to light a path to an eternal fire of peace, love, brotherhood and sisterhood amongst all nations.

Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it.

Anger continued on past its usefulness becomes unjust, then dangerous… It fuels not positive activism but regression, obsession, vengeance, self-righteousness. Corrosive, it feeds off itself, destroying its host in the process.

The past is already in debt to the mismanaged present. And besides, contrary to what you may have heard or learned, the past is not done and it is not over, it’s still in process, which is another way of saying that when it’s critiqued, analyzed, it yields new information about itself. The past is already changing as it is being reexamined, as it is being listened to for deeper resonances. Actually it can be more liberating than any imagined future if you are willing to identify its evasions, its distortions, its lies, and are willing to unleash its secrets.